Farewell to the English director Graham Vick, he was 67 years old

English theater and opera director Graham Vick died in London at the age of 67. Artistic director of the Birmingham Opera Company, he was known for his experimental and nonconformist direction of traditional operas. Vick had also worked in many Italian theaters, including the Massimo di Palermoi, the Comunale di Bologna, the Opera di Roma, the Rossini Opera Festival, staging Otello and Macbeth at La Scala under the direction of Riccardo Muti. . At the Maggio Fiorentino he had conducted Lucia di Lammermoor, while for the Rossini Opera Festival he had staged, among others, the Guglielmo Tell. Graham Vick was born in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, in 1953 and was one of the most significant figures in contemporary filmmaking. At La Scala Vick made his debut in 1996 with the world premiere of Outis, the penultimate opera by Luciano Berio, with libretto by Dario Del Corno, conductor David Robertson. A performance where there was no lack of controversy, but which was nevertheless a success, so much so that the Theater recalled it for the inauguration of the 1997/1998 season with Verdi’s Macbeth directed by Riccardo Muti. La Scala had never dared such an abstract and contemporary staging for an opera by Verdi, much less for a December 7th, but in the end there were 13 minutes of applause. In 2001 he returned to La Scala for a new Verdi inauguration, again with Riccardo Muti: Otello, protagonist Plácido Domingo, with the scenography by Ezio Frigerio and costumes by Franca Squarciapino. Again at La Scala in 2005 for the staging of Tchaikovsky’s Onegin, in nineteenth-century costumes among the ears of wheat, under the direction of Vladimir Jurovskij. Finally, in 2019, Vick again at La Scala with a new production of Die tote Stadt by Korngold directed by Alan Gilbert, visionary and vibrant with political and sensual passion, starring Asmik Grigorian. Five memorable shows, very different from each other as Vick’s were always different, all capable of combining rational acribia, boundless theatrical culture and emotional impact, intimate sensitivity and civil dimension.